Flag Football Elite earns North Carolina's lone NFL FLAG berth

Flag Football Elite landed North Carolina’s only berth to the 2026 NFL FLAG Championships Presented by Toyota, sending the Chapel Hill-area nonprofit from a first-year upstart to the sport’s biggest youth stage. Founded by former NFL running back Cedric Peerman and former Division I athlete Dr. Hagar Elgendy, the program says it now serves about 2,000 athletes through seasonal leagues, travel teams, skills development and community-based programming.

The national championships are set for July 23-26 at Droplight Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana, with the championship games scheduled for Sunday, July 26. NFL FLAG says the field will include teams from all 32 NFL club regional tournaments and more than 10 international teams, and official coverage calls it the largest youth flag football tournament in the world, with more than 350 girls and boys teams. Fan access is free, but NFL OnePass registration is required, and select championship games will air on ESPN and stream on Disney+.

For Flag Football Elite, the invitation is bigger than a single weekend trip. The organization says it serves athletes ages 4 to 17, and more than 20 percent of participants currently receive scholarship assistance. Its materials say the long-term goal is to have more than half of athletes covered by scholarships, a signal that access remains central as the program scales in the Triangle.

The nonprofit has also tied its growth to athlete development off the field. Flag Football Elite announced a partnership with the UNC Sports Medicine Institute to improve safety, training and overall well-being for players across the Triangle. That kind of support matters in a sport that has surged in visibility, more so as families look for organized football opportunities that balance competition with lower-contact play.

Elgendy brings a substantial competitive résumé to the operation. The program says she represented Egypt in international competition, won seven national titles, set a national record and finished second at the 2012 Olympic Trials. Peerman and Elgendy have built the organization around Chapel Hill, Durham, Pittsboro and the broader Chatham County footprint, with practices and games at sites including Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill and Northwood High School in Pittsboro. Now that local pipeline runs straight to Westfield, where North Carolina’s lone berth will be tested against the deepest championship field in youth flag football.